Vehicles can be driven by different drivers. By the same token, different persons can be transported in a vehicle, even if these persons themselves are not the driver. For numerous purposes and applications, it is important to know which driver is driving a specific vehicle and/or which persons in this specific vehicle are being transported as passengers. For example, a car rental company can prescribe a specific driver or group of drivers for a given rental vehicle, so that the vehicle can only be driven by authorized persons who hold a driver's license and by persons who drive with due care. Therefore, it would be desirable if the car rental company could check whether its requirements are actually being complied with. Determining who the driver is can also be helpful, for example, for investigating traffic accidents involving these vehicles. In another example, an insurance company could be interested in ascertaining which specific persons in a vehicle drove which miles. Furthermore, in order to initiate emergency responses, for example, after accidents, it would be desirable if the emergency dispatcher could quickly obtain information about the number of persons in the vehicle.
German utility model DE 20 2008 013 951 U1 discloses electronic tachograph recording on the basis of position data (for example, GPS data) that is transmitted from a vehicle to a server via a wireless network connection. However, this does not make it possible to ascertain how many and which persons are in the vehicle. A known approach is to install weight sensors under the vehicle seats in order to determine whether a seat in the vehicle is being occupied by a person. However, these sensors cannot determine the identity of the person.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,945,919 discloses a system with which the positions of a plurality of vehicles are monitored and, in each case, the vehicle that is nearest to the location of a given customer is allocated to this customer so that it can provide a service for that person. One example includes vehicles that are being driven for a taxi company. As soon as a customer requests a taxi in the system, the nearest vehicle to this customer is sent to pick him/her up. In this process, neither the identity of the customer nor the ultimate number of passengers in this taxi is ascertained. Thus, the system does not automatically know which persons and how many persons are in the taxi.
German patent application DE 101 19 244 A1 discloses a method for arranging and monitoring a trip by travelers. Here, a determination is made of the position of a vehicle that is driving along a certain route and the position of a possible traveler who would like to get into this vehicle in order to get a ride. In order to match travelers with drivers of certain vehicles who are willing to provide a ride, the driver and the traveler have to identify themselves personally. Consequently, with this method, the identities of the persons involved are known right from the start. However, this method can only be used for persons who have identified themselves personally ahead of time. In particular, the vehicle is automatically associated with a specific driver who is known to the system, and the system then offers a traveler who is known to the system as someone who would like to ride with that driver. If the arrangement is made, then the driver and the traveler are already determined ahead of time. Here, any other persons who might be traveling along in the vehicle cannot be identified. Likewise, it cannot be ascertained whether the driver indicated in the system is indeed the actual driver.
Drivers or passengers can be identified, for example, via iris scanners, fingerprint sensors or other identification techniques that are installed in the vehicle. However, for one thing, this presupposes the installation of special sensors in the vehicle as well as the availability of additional unusual and very specific data pertaining to the identification of persons. This greatly complicates the effort needed to identity persons.
Therefore, it is desirable to have a system and a corresponding method with which the number and the identity of any persons in a vehicle can be identified without any involvement on the part of these persons and with only slight modifications to the vehicle. It is especially desirable to determine whether the vehicle is being driven by an authorized person.